A Boy at the Cross-Roads of Life

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As a boy in middle school, I was right on the edge of heading in the wrong direction. There was a great battle going on for my mind and spirit. Then one critical day I hit a cross-roads. The Lord spoke to me and called me to follow him. You can hear the story of what happened in Part 3 of the video series How to Help to Help Your Children Become Self-Motivated.

We have all experienced this battle. Your children will too. What can you do to help them? What can you do to facilitate a one-on-one encounter with God for your child? 

In this video, we will explore the important difference between discipline (using external motivation) and discipleship (developing internal motivation). You can learn to successfully transition from discipline to discipleship and help bring about a true heart transformation in your children.

Can you remember a crossroads like this in your life? Can you remember the people in your life that helped you move in the right direction? Leave a comment below and tell us about it. 

Photo by Steve Halama on Unsplash

Have You Discovered the Ultimate Goal of Parenting?

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What we are aiming for as parents has a major impact on how we relate to and raise our children every day. Have you discovered the ultimate goal of parenting from God's point of view? It is easy for us to get distracted by all sorts of other parenting goals and motives that will not produce the outcome we are really looking for. 

Here is Part 2 of my video series on How to Help Your Children Become Self-Motivated. [Hint: Helping your children to become self-motivated is not the ultimate goal of parenting!]

Have You Misunderstood the Conditions of Following Jesus?

After Abraham had passed the test with his son Isaac, God said an amazing thing to him.

"Because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son,
I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring . . ."
Genesis 22:16-17

Did you catch that? God said he would fulfill his covenant promises to Abraham because he had obeyed. So, if Abraham had not obeyed, God would not have fulfilled his promises? Is that how our relationship with God works? What did Jesus say about it?

"Any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple."
Luke 14:33

As we continue to study the life of Abraham and observe his obedience without limits, we will understand more deeply what it means to follow Jesus in the New Covenant. Listen to Part 2 of a teaching series on Obedience Without Limits from Genesis 22.

What Does God Want from Us?

“Will you marry me?” The young man on his knee looked up into her beautiful eyes.

She beamed and squealed, “Yes!”

“Great! Now let’s get one thing straight. I will be a faithful husband to you and love you all year long, as long as I can go out on just one date a year with another woman. Will that be alright?”

How would you guess the young lady responds? Most young ladies I know would never agree to such an arrangement! The meaning and security of marriage is that we get that person all to ourselves! This is what we call the exclusivity of marriage. Everyone else is excluded from that special relationship.

The exclusivity of marriage helps us understand what God wants in our relationship with him. God has created us to love him. That is our purpose. Now let's ask the question, “How do we love God?” The first way I want to answer this question is to explain the scope of loving God. In other words, how much of me and my life does loving God include? We can return to Jesus’ words to discover the answer:

“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.
And you shall love the Lord our God
with all your heart and with all your soul
and with all your mind and with all your strength.”
Mark 12:30

What is the scope? How much of me and my life does loving God include?

All. “All” is repeated in this verse four times. He wants us all to himself! All leaves nothing out.

When people tried to follow Jesus while he was here on earth, he wanted to make sure they understood what he expected from them. Jesus shoots straight with us. He doesn’t lure us into a deal and then reveal later in the fine print what is really required of us.

“And he said to all, ‘If anyone would come after me,
let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.”
Luke 9:23

“Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them,
‘If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife
and children and brothers and sisters,
yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.
Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me
cannot be my disciple.
For which of you, desiring to build a tower,
does not first sit down and count the cost,
whether he has enough to complete it? . . .
So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has
cannot be my disciple."
Luke 14:25-33

Pretty extreme, isn’t it? As soon as we consider following him, he tells us to count the cost. Again, the deal is total. Is that what you signed up for? Were you under a different impression of what it means to follow Jesus?

Instead of this passionate, radical, fulfilling life in relationship with God, many of us got a stingy, religious version of Christianity. No wonder the world rejects religion! Christianity is a religion, of course, according to the dictionary definition. But religion in its broadest and usually negative sense is hollow. Religion allows you to focus on institutions, doctrines, dues, human leaders, ritual, and self-righteousness. Many religious people think they can give a portion of their lives to God. Many use religion to serve themselves. They use religion to make themselves feel better, trying to ease their consciences. American Christianity is often presented as a self-service program in order to appeal to the people.

What is your understanding of what it means to be a Christian? Maybe it is time for a reassessment.

Is Your Family Stuck in the Raging River of Busyness?

Sometimes our lives feel like we have been thrown into a rushing river. We are just trying to survive, barely keeping our heads above the water and avoiding the jagged rocks. We have little control over our direction and speed. This is how we feel when we have surrendered to the tyranny of the urgent. We are at the mercy of deadlines, appointments, and activities. We are driven by what the culture says we must do, by what others want us to do and by the gratification of our immediate desires.

But I have had enough of this. I have sputtered and bumped along in these rapids for too long, watching my life whiz by, watching my children grow up. God has given me a call and purpose for my family, and it is not being accomplished in this raging river of busyness!

So I desperately swim for the shore, not even sure I can break through the powerful currents. Drenched, coughing and exhausted, I crawl out onto the bank. And now I am asking myself, “What is this supposed to looks like? How do I build a different life?”

First, I must refocus on my purpose and mission as a follower of Jesus Christ. My purpose and mission is to love God, love people, and make disciples. This is not only the purpose and mission of each of us as believers, but of our families as well.

Next, in order to see what my life is supposed to look like, I reflect on my biblical responsibilities and priorities. I have come up with five areas of responsibility and priority. These are the ways that we can fulfill our purpose and mission in our families.

  1. Relationships

  2. Discipleship

  3. Order and Work

  4. Education

  5. Ministry

Relationships

To be a family is to have relationships. To love others is to relate to them. How am I loving my wife and children? Am I treating them with kindness, patience and selflessness? Am I affirming and accepting them? What kind of relationships am I building with them? Are we making time to talk? Are we spending time together? Strong relationships are the foundation for the next category, discipleship.

Discipleship

To disciple others is to help them love God, love people and make disciples. This must be the ultimate goal of family because it is the ultimate goal of life. How am I helping my family to love God? How am I helping them to love others? How am I equipping them to know their own gifting, calling and personal ministry?

Order and Work

Loving God includes stewardship. All that we have is from God, and our responsibility is to care for what he has given us and use it to bless others. Stewardship requires work: cleaning, organizing and maintaining. Work is our contribution to the family and community and it is how we provide for our basic needs so that we are free to minister to others. A messy, chaotic home is not a place where discipleship, education or ministry can thrive.

Education

Education is the acquisition of knowledge and skill. These are tools for helping us accomplish our God given mission. Facilitating and leading our children in the acquisition of knowledge and skill is part of our responsibility as parents. Am I faithful in educating my children? Am I preparing them for a life of productivity and blessing to others?

Ministry

Ministry is the culmination of all that we have discussed so far. A spouse is a partner in ministry. A family is a ministry team. Are we joining God in his work to build his kingdom? Are our hearts beating with his for the nations? What are we doing as a family to express the love and truth of God to others? How much of our time is spent serving and entertaining ourselves? Are we intentionally giving our money, time  and energy for ministry?

By faith I am rejecting the tyranny of the urgent. I will break the patterns of busyness and reactionism. Instead of focusing on what others expect from me, I will focus on what God desires for me. By faith I am choosing a life of peace and purpose for my family. In order to do this, I will make these five building blocks my priorities: relationships, discipleship, order and work, education  and ministry. It may be a desperate swim to the shore, but God can help me make it. He can give me everything I need to live out his fantastic mission for my family.

How to Find Your Purpose

One day when shopping at Trader Joe’s, I saw an employee wandering around carrying a sign, “Ask me!” So I walked up to the young man and asked him, “What is the meaning of life?” He looked at me, surprised and speechless. When I broke into a grin, he looked relieved and seemed to hope I didn’t actually expect him to answer the question. People often refer to this as the supremely difficult or unanswerable question. Is it really impossible to answer?

Like most people, you have probably asked yourself, “Why am I here?” Another way of putting it might be, “What is the purpose of my life?” Now you can make up your own answer to that question, and many people do. However, many sense that there is a greater purpose outside of themselves to discover. Who or what else might determine our purpose in life? This brings us to another question that most people ask, “Where did I come from?”

We might begin answering the question, “Where did I come from?” with “From my mother and father.” But where did they come from? Where did any of us come from? Where did the world come from? There are primarily two common answers to this question: We came from nothing (The Big Bang and Evolution) or we came from God (some intelligent, powerful being). If we came from nothing, then you get to make up your own purpose in life (because there really isn’t one). If we came from God, then we should ask God what his purpose is for us.

So, which explanation makes more sense to you? Have we come from nothing or from God? It seems obvious to me that a world full of beauty, freedom, design, love, morality, and order did not come from nothing. The other explanation is that God created everything. The Bible teaches that the existence of God is obvious to us because of creation.

“For what can be known about God is plain to them,
because God has shown it to them.
For his invisible attributes,
namely his eternal power and divine nature,
are clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world,
in the things that have been made.
So they are without excuse.”
Romans 1:19-20

Next time we'll ask: "How do we know who this creator God is? Aren't there other gods and bibles?" 

Bible Reading Ideas

Based on what we believe the Bible teaches about itself, it makes perfect sense to make it a daily habit to read the Bible. This would be the bare minimum!

“Blessed is the man . . . [whose] delight is in the law of the Lord,
and on his law he meditates day and night.”
(Psalm 1:1-2)

Bible reading should be a basic part of our daily time with God. So, what should we read? Anywhere in the Bible is great! Here are a few ideas and principles to keep in mind. 

Expose yourself to the entire Bible.

We often gravitate to those portions of Scripture that we find easier to understand or that mean a lot to us. This is fine, but it is important to read and understand the epic story of God’s relationship to man throughout history and across the Old and New Covenants. It is important to expose ourselves to all the truth principles of Scripture. It is a good idea to make it your goal to systematically and repeatedly read through the entire Bible. There are many methods and resources for doing this.

  • You can buy a one or two year Bible.
  • You can find a program or app that leads you through the Bible in a certain period of time.
  • You can decide not to put a  time limit on it. Read through the Bible as slowly as you want.
  • Instead of reading straight through, many people like to read different portions of the Scripture each day or week. For example, you might read a passage from the OT, from Psalms and Proverbs, and something from the NT. Most one year programs are designed this way.

Read entire Bible books.

The best way to understand the correct meaning of a sentence or verse is to understand how it fits into its paragraph, section, and book. You might decide to conduct a deep study of a particular book of the Bible.

Ask specific questions.

No matter what you are reading, be sure to make it personal and practical. This is not just a history lesson or an exploration of ideas. It is a personal encounter with God. It is an opportunity for God to speak to you with encouragement and direction. Here is a list of questions you might use as you read.

1. Summarize the story or teaching in 1 to 3 sentences.

2. What do I learn about the character and ways of God in these verses?

3. What example of obedience or faith do I find in these verses (or bad example)?

4. Do I have any questions that require further study?

5. How is God speaking to me through this Scripture?

6. What am I going to do in response to his leading?

7. Write or voice a prayer to God in response to what he has shown you.

Journal as you read the Bible.

Journaling is a wonderful activity and habit to develop, even when you are not reading the Bible. The main reason is that it helps you to develop, clarify, organize, and record your thoughts and experiences. It increases your awareness and intentionality in life. For these same reasons, it is helpful to journal as you are reading your Bible. You could use questions like those above to guide your journaling.  

Study a topic.

Sometimes you might want to read the Bible in light of a particular question or problem you have. I recently wanted to study about fasting. I simply did a search for the words “fast” and “fasting” on esvbible.org. I read each verse that referred to fasting. I tried to find the main principle in each verse that related to fasting. Don’t forget how important it is to read the larger context of each verse in order to accurately understand it. Then I put all of these principles together to get an idea of what the Bible teaches on fasting in general.

Some topics will include several key words or ideas to find the relevant passages. For example, a study on prayer might include Matt 7:7-11, which does not include the word “prayer”! But the word “ask” appears five times.

Happy Bible reading!